AIR UNIVERSITY

Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Innovative Aerodynamics Design for Low Power

Consumption Car Department of Mechanical
Engineering

An undergraduate thesis of the bachelors study programme in

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Muhammad Husnain

Islamabad, August 2020

 AIR UNIVERSITY

Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Innovative Aerodynamics Design for Low Power

Consumption Car at the Department of
Mechanical Engineering

An undergraduate thesis of the first-cycle professional study programme in

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Muhammd Husnain

Advisor: Prof. Dr. Irtiza Ali Shah, PhD Mechanical Engineering

Co-advisor: Prof. Dr. Mehr Nigar, PhD Mechanical Engineering

Islamabad, August 2020

Space for a signed copy of the final thesis proposal.
Acknowledgements

This report is part of final year project in Mechanical Engineering and has been performed
under the supervision of Dr. Irtiza at the Institute of Avionics and Aerospace engineering,
Air University (AU). I highly appreciate for his true guidance and advices, especially for
his willingness to spare time for discussions, meetings, and encouraging us.

v
vi
Declaration

1. I, the undersigned Muhammad Husnain, born 8 June 1999 in Toba Tek Singh, at the
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Air University, hereby declare
that this undergraduate thesis titled Innovative Aerodynamic Design for Low Power
Consumption Car at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering is my own original work
created under the supervision of my advisor Prof. Dr. Irtiza and co-advisor Prof. Dr.
Mehr Nigar.

2. I hereby declare that the submitted electronic copy of this undergraduate thesis is
identical to the printed copy.

3. I hereby expressly give my permission for this undergraduate thesis to be published on

the websites of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the University of
Ljubljana.

4. By signing this Declaration, I grant my permission for this undergraduate thesis to be

made publicly accessible online via the Library of Air University.

By signing this document, I certify that:

‐ the presented text is the product of my own original research in its entirety;

‐ the presented text adheres to linguistic and stylistic conventions and the technical
requirements of the Guidelines for Composing Final Theses, meaning that:
‐ the works and opinions of other authors used in this undergraduate thesis are
appropriately cited or acknowledged pursuant to the Guidelines for Composing Final
Theses, and
‐ I have obtained the permission for the use of any data and original work reproduced
in the text in full (either as text or as a graphic) from their respective authors and
duly noted that in the text itself;

‐ I am aware that plagiarism, i.e. the misrepresentation of someone else’s work (be it
text or graphics) as my own, is a crime under the HEC Plagiarism Policy, Pakistan;

‐ I am aware of the potential repercussions concerning my status at the Department

of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Air University, as per the applicable Rules
should plagiarism be proven in connection to the submitted undergraduate thesis

Islamabad, 23 November 2020 Signature of the

authors:__________________

vii
viii
Abstract

UDC 123.45:678.91:234.56(789.1)
Serial No.: MAG II/99

Innovative Aerodynamics Design for Low Power Consumption Car at the

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Muhammad Husnain

Keywords:
1. Passenger Car Drag Reduction.
2. Aerodynamic Passenger Car.
3. Automobiles Aerodynamics.

This final year project is intended to provide an innovative and ingenious structural design
for the fuel-efficient passenger car. Fuel used by cars are petrol, diesel and electricity etc.
Almost 80 % of the world’s car and automobiles are running on the fuel obtain from the
natural resources. According to the research, natural resources are depleting at a very high
pace and by the year 2050 we will not have any natural fuel. Therefore, price of fuel are
increasing day by day. To reduce the usage of fuel, the efficiency of car can be increased
by improving the design of car. When we talk about the passenger car aerodynamics, drag
is the critical fact that cannot be ignored which is the momentous component in reducing
the consumption of fuel and for marvelous designing of an aerodynamic passenger car.
Drag is a force that acts in the same direction as the airflow to the car. About more than
50% of the car’s fuel is used to overcome the drag. By countering the effect of drag, we
can improve the stability, achieve high speed and control global warming. Drag in the
passenger car is generated by the skin friction and the pressure difference that exists due to
the flow separation at the rear of the car. From the last three decades, many prestigious
research had been done on the reduction of drag and enhancing the stability of car. Drag
coefficient (CD) can be reduced by weight ratio of car but this technique is not a highly
recommended approach as 0.003 of CD reduction can be achieved by reducing 10-15 kg of

ix
a car. Therefore, Passive (add on devices and topology modification) and Active (steady jet
flow) control techniques were used to minimize the generation of drag by spoiler, diffuser
plates and by other modern techniques which are supported by many articles. A cad
geometry of our proposed model will be designed on Solid works. Then the computational
fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of the Cad design will be done on ANSYS Fluent module
of ANSYS Workbench. The ANSYS workbench generated results of Drag and Lift will be
then compared with the typical design. A 1/60 th scaled 3D prototype of the design will be
fabricated by 3D printer and further investigated in a wind tunnel. Both software and
experimental results will be compared. If our proposed design give significant result then
the design will proved to be a beneficial asset in near future..

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Table of contents

1. Introduction................................................................................1
1.1 Background...........................................................................................................1
1.1.1 Types of drag on a Passenger Car..................................................................1
1.2 Objectives..............................................................................................................2

2 Theoretical background and overview of literature................3

2.1 Literature..............................................................................................................3

3 Methodology................................................................................7
3.1 Theoretical Calculations......................................................................................7
3.1.1 Coefficient of drag Calculation.......................................................................7
3.1.2 Coefficient of lift Calculation..........................................................................7

4 Bibliography................................................................................8

xi
List of figures

Figure 2.1: Percentage drag reduction by active flow [2]..................................................................4

Figure 2.2: Percentage drag reduction by passive flow [2, 3]............................................................5
Figure 2.3: Comparative percentage drag reduction..........................................................................5

xii
List of tables

Table 2.1: Drag values for smooth underbody...................................................................................6

Table 2.2: Drag values for detailed under body.................................................................................6

xiii
List of symbols used

Symbol Unit Meaning

A m2 surface area
FD N drag force
FL N lift force
CD / drag coefficient
d mm, m diameter
P Pa, bar pressure
v m s-1 velocity
ꝭ Kg m-3 density
CL / lift coefficient
P watt, Js-1 power
Re / Reynold number
h m height
b m wheel base
ψ yawing angle

xiv
List of acronyms used

Acronym Meaning

CFD Computational fluid dynamics

DOF Degree of freedom
PIV Particle image velocimetry
FEM Finite element method
FDM Finite difference method
LLSM Laser light sheet method
DIPT Digital image processing technique
SPL Sound pressure level
PFL Pressure fluctuation level
FWSA Front wind screen angle
BWSA Back wind screen angle
VG Vortices generator
SUV Sport utilities vehicles
MVG&RW Moving ground and rotating wheel
RANS Reyold average navier stokes equation

xv
1. Introduction

1.1 Background
Fuel Consumption, is a major drawback in today’s world due to depletion in natural fuel
resources leading to fuel price hike. Moreover, its consumption also has other
consequences like emission of carbon dioxide and other hazardous gases that effects the
surrounding environment and ozone layer. To minimize the usage of fuel; several
researches have been conducted to improve aerodynamics performance in automotive,
aircraft and transportation industry. The core area of automotive industry focused on the
structural design of car to reduce its dragging effect and decrease the fuel usage. When we
talk about the power consumption of the cars there are certain things like engine efficiency,
driving ability, transmission, and drag. Drag is one of the most crucial effect that cannot be
ignored in the power consumption.

1.1.1 Types of drag on a Passenger Car

Shear Drag:

Shear drag is defined as the effect of drag on the surface of body. It is basically due to the
skin friction. The frictional drag per-dominantly depend upon the surface condition of
body. For smooth surface less friction drag will be produced whereas for rough surface
effect of friction drag becomes significant. Friction drag also depend upon the viscosity of
fluid flowing around the body, which generate no slip condition on the surface of moving
object. It can be minimized by attaining laminar flow around the body and also by
decreasing cross-section area of body.

Pressure Drag:

The pressure drag is the pressure difference between the front and back of the car due to
which flow separation (creation of wake at the rear end of car) occur. Wake at the rear end
causes the instability in the handling of car especially at high speeds. As the speed of the
car goes high so the drag increases in square with the velocity as well as the downward lift
decreases. Both effects, drag and lift must be minimized to decrease the power
consumption, rolling, yawing, and pitching moments. Mostly work is being done to reduce
the pressure drag on car as it depend on the geometry of car. An optimal aerodynamic
shape of car can reduced the influence of pressure drag which increase the efficiency and
performance of car.

1.2 Objectives
The main aim of this project is to design a passenger car that reduces the consumption fuel
either by modifying the geometry of car or by installing of valuable active and passive
devices such as diffuser, spoiler, air dams, roof edge extension etc. to delay the flow
separation at the rear end or to decrease the wake and increase the pressure at the rear end
as well as to produce a downward lift which increase the aerodynamics of car.

2
2 Theoretical background and overview of
literature

2.1 Literature
A literature review of last three decade was studied to grasp the understanding of the final
year project. Summary of few papers are discussed below:

[1] Flow visualization aerodynamics interference between passenger car in two cases
first vehicle in a convoy and in parallel passing especially wake structure behind
interfering passenger cars. Specially attention is paid to the effect of Reynold number
(Re) on flow pattern especially in severe interference condition flow structure around
the interfering cars changes dramatically depending on the ground and floor gap and
Reynold no (Re). Safety and luxury of road vehicle can be enhanced by improving the
characteristic of air flow characteristic around the vehicle. External flow determined
the moments and forces in the six DOF in which safety and performance is also cater.
Moments are along longitudinal, transverse and along vertical axis. Fast vehicles
streamline while PIV gives a velocity vector field in the plane perpendicular to the
model surface. Oil visualization is applied encounter drastic gust loads when driven in
close proximity to each other such phenomena is known as aerodynamics interference
between road vehicles. Road vehicle suggest extra forces specially yawing moment and
side forces. And produce drift when passing or take over large vehicles. For
authenticity compare result of both the FEM and K-ε model. To check the wake behind
the vehicle laser light sheet (LLSM) method and digital image processing technique
(DIPT) are used. In process of overtaking CD of aerodynamics force increases rapidly
and wake structure change very quickly. Aerodynamic pressure reduces in the wake in
the 1st vehicle influence the aerodynamic characteristics and drag of following vehicles.
In cavalcade the aerodynamics drag reduces. Drag may improve when distance
between vehicle are moving opposite with high speed both faces high pressure on front
side. Pressure on the facing side goes maximum quickly and then goes to minimum
abruptly. Then gradually decreases. In flow visualization general methods are used in
which oil film method and china clay method third one is the smoke technique
 visualization method. To clarify the effect of aerodynamic drag we do two test one
when car in cavalcade and second when it is over taking.
[2] Koike et al observed that the drag coefficient of a passenger car is between 0.2 and
0.5. However, the car with front bluff shape had drag coefficient up to 1.0. Flow separation
and down flow occurred in both sedan car and streamline body. Thus, indicated its same
profile. It was observed that the decline on rear window of car delayed the flow separation
at a same principle applied to golf ball. Dimple on golf ball decreased the Cd value from its
actual value. For this purpose, a Mitsubishi car Lancer was used to study the effect of flow
separation in reducing the total drag of a car that had high potential of taming its
performance and fuel consumption. Different size and design of Vortices Generator (VG)
are inserted on the rear top end of car. Bumped shaped vortices generator of different
heights 15 mm, 20 mm, and 25 mm with an approximate steep angle of 27 degree were
used. The result showed that the size of bumped shape VG between 20 to 25 mm and large
height decrease the significant amount of drag and lift. But larger height of VG also
produced a drag itself and achieved the reduction of 0.003 in total drag of car. Another delta
wing shape VG with yaw angle of 15 degree to the airflow was used. Reduction of drag
seen in delta wing shape was greater than bumped shaped VG, which was about of 0.006.
CFD analysis of Mitsubishi lancer with both type of vortices generator were installed and
reduction of Cd of 0.004 and CL of 0.013 was observed which were comparable to the
experimental results.

[3] Reviewed the study of aerodynamics drag reduction by using active and passive flow
techniques. Pressure drag that contribute 80% of the total drag is mainly developed due to
the flow separation behind the car that result in the wake propagation. The size of the wake
depends on the geometry of the vehicle at the rear end. Reduction in drag by geometry
modification is the least expensive technique to improve fuel efficiency. Active flow
control is another technique that has its effect on drag reduction. But active flow strategy
uses actuators that require power. So this method is less efficient as compared to the
passive flow

Figure 2.1: Percentage drag reduction by active flow

4
 Figure 2.2: Percentage drag reduction by passive flow

Figure 2.3: Comparative percentage drag reduction

It was found that active, passive and combined passive flow controls reduce the drag
by 20%, 21.2% and 30% respectively.

[4]Studied DrivAer car model by numerical simulations using Open FOAM solver.
Three models of DrivAer (fastback, estate back and notchback) were studied by using
smooth and detailed flow at the downside. For the numerical study velocity was
achieved 40m/s, as a result Reynold number of 4.87M was developed. The study was
done using steady state air conditions by k-w model.
It can be seen from the tables that estate back model provides the most drag, while the
fastback model provides the least drag coefficient. In this model steady state of flow was
used for analysis but that is not much efficient. So, it is necessary to use turbulence flow
analysis in future work using k-epsilon method.

5
 Table 2.1: Drag values for smooth underbody

Model type Ground Experimental Cd Numerical

condition Cd
WoGS 0.284 0.2925
Fastback WGS 0.275 0.3029
WoGS 0.318 0.3199
Estateback WGS 0.319 0.3546
WoGS 0.286 0.3042
Notchback WGS 0.277 0.3095

Table 2.2: Drag values for detailed under body

Model type Ground Experimental Cd Numerical Cd

condition

WoGS 0.254 0.2599

Fastback WGS 0.243 0.2599
WoGS 0.296 0.2684
Estateback WGS 0.292 0.2840
WoGS 0.258 0.2567
Notchback WGS 0.246 0.2565

[5] Wickern et al. studied the effect of induced drag on a car with and without ground
simulation in Audi wind tunnel. The result obtained by wind tunnel test indicated that the
sedan type car with notchback produced less induced drag with ground simulation whereas
wagon type car with square back generated large drag even without ground simulation
.Induced drag was generally generated by lift at the rear axle of car which was altered by
rear spoiler. The aerodynamics shape of vehicles were considered to be similar to wing like
geometry and the effect of lift was an important area of study in drag reduction. The
contemporary ground simulation technique consist of three basic components: suction or
blowing produced at boundary layer, effect of moving belt in ground and rotation of wheel.
It was observed by previous literature that rear wheel rotation of an automobile had a great
influence on total drag of car. The prime position of rear spoiler produced less drag and lift
of car. The spoiler mounted as an extended rear spoiler gave whole body of car a wing like
shape that provided no reduction in drag and stability of car. Whereas the spoiler mounted
on the trunk of car produced less drag which decrease the intense of vortices generated at
the back of car. The concept of reduction of drag for sedan and square back car were
different from one another. In square back vehicle, the downwash of flow increases due to
roof edge extension which reduced the drag and increases stability of car whereas the same
technique when applied on sedan type car, increases the drag.

6
[6] First, improve the shape of vehicle by using topology in the ANSYS Fluent. In this way
make most suitable shape in which the drag effects are minimum. By using the rear auto
diffuser which enhance the quality of the drag by activating the diffuser when the speed
crosses the limit of 70km/h. The shape of the diffuser is semi arc like round in form. Seven
type of diffusers may be used in different condition according to require shape which one
is required. The basic purpose of the diffuser is to reduce the effect of drag so that less fuel
consumption. This function is achieved by increasing pressure and so the velocity become
decreases below side. So, the pressure behind side is desirable.

7
3 Methodology

3.1 Theoretical Calculations

For designing the Aerodynamic shape of passenger car, different parameter result will be
obtained.

3.1.1 Coefficient of drag Calculation

For conventional, the drag coefficient of car can be governed by the following equation.

FD
CD=
0.5 Aρ u 2
 “FD” drag force acting on car.
 “A” the effective cross section area.
 “ ρ ” the density of air or fluid

3.1.2 Coefficient of lift Calculation

The coefficient of lift produced by car can be determined from the following equation
FL
CD=
0.5 Aρ u 2
 “FL” drag force acting on car.
 “A” the cross section area.
 “ ρ ” the density of air or fluid
4 Bibliography

1. Azim, A.F.A. and A.F.A. Gawad, A flow visualization study of the aerodynamic
interference between passenger cars. 2000, SAE Technical Paper.

2. Koike, M., T. Nagayoshi, and N.J.M.m.t.r. Hamamoto, Research on aerodynamic

drag reduction by vortex generators. 2004. 16: p. 11-16.

3. Mukut, A.M.I., M.Z.J.I.J.o.E.M. Abedin, and Manufacture, Review on

Aerodynamic Drag Reduction of Vehicles. 2019. 4(1): p. 1-14.

4. Shinde, G., A. Joshi, and K.J.T.C.S. Nikam, Pune, India, Numerical investigations
of the drivAer car model using opensource CFD solver OpenFOAM. 2013.

5. Wickern, G., A. Wagner, and C.J.S.t. Zoerner, Induced drag of ground vehicles
and its interaction with ground simulation. 2005: p. 993-1002.

6. Kang, S.-O., et al., Actively translating a rear diffuser device for the aerodynamic
drag reduction of a passenger car. 2012. 13(4): p. 583-592.